Fire training facility questions

[volff1170]

These questions are for departments that run their own training facilities...

My department has a Class A burn trailer sitting on roughly 30 acres and we invite any local fire department to use it and just pay for the materials. There is plenty of room for future expansion and every department that comes to use our trailer says we are sitting on a gold mine with so much room to add other training props.

Well, I was approached by one of our town officials and asked if I thought that we could start an actual school on this property. Obviously our trailer isn't enough for a school but its a start. We are already working on a classroom and other props. The questions that he asked me are the same questions I want to ask on here.

Can a government entity operate a "for-profit" school? The reason he asked this is because we are a volunteer department and any extra money coming in could supplement department operation costs.

Would a school that operated as a non-profit still bring in enough money to sustain itself? There is one chartered agency that teaches in our county but it doesn't have the facilities or room to expand like we can.

If your department has a training complex, is there anything that we should consider before starting down this road? Is there a particular class or prop that seems to attract attention more than others?

Thanks in advance
Tim

[LaFireEducator]

I don't see any reason why a department couldn't operate fireschool that would make money for the department.

Obviously, there would be some liability issues related to the fire school that could affect the department, but I would think that there could be a way to "split" the operation that may protect the department funds.

As far as the sustainability, one would have to look at all the operational costs associatted including capirtal costs, operations, maintainence, insurance and personnel, including the liklihood of requiring at a minimum some type of paid administrator to handle routine business, class bookings and the like.

[FFWALT]

Regardless of if you are looking at an "for profit" operation or just a training facilility for your department to use, planning is the key part. You need to have a plan on how you are going to grow and develop. This is key to developing an effective training facility.
If you want to visit our facility to get some ideas feel free to contact me. We are not operating for profit, we simply want to keep from losing money.
Walt